Richard Merrill

My research focuses on the ecological, genetic and developmental basis of adaptive behaviours that contribute to the evolution of new species. In particular, I am interested in how behavioural isolation evolves, and how genetic architecture and other factors may influence this process. Heliconius warning colour patterns are also used as mate recognition cues and are associated with diverging preference behaviours contributing to varying degrees of assortative mating. I have previously demonstrated that the genetic loci underlying divergent mating preferences and their colour pattern cues are physically linked in the genome, which should facilitate speciation with gene flow. A major ongoing project concerns the nature of these associations as well as the genetics and ecology of behavioural isolation in Heliconius butterflies more broadly.